Nikanor Ivanovich's Dream It's not hard to guess that the fat man with the purple face who had been put into Room No. 119 at the clinic was Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi. Before coming to Professor Stravinsky, however, he had spent some time in another place. Very little ofthat other place remained in Nikanor Ivanovich's memory. All he could remember was a desk, a bookcase, and a couch. The people there had tried to engage Nikanor Ivanovich in conversation, but since his head was spinning from an influx of blood and from extreme emotional distress, the conversation had been strange and muddled. In fact, it had not really been a conversation at all. The first question Nikanor Ivanovich had been asked was, "Are you Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi, chairman of the house committee at 302B Sadovaya Street?" Which made Nikanor Ivanovich burst out into a horrible cackle and answer, "Of course I'm Nikanor Ivanovich! But what the devil kind of a chairman am I!" "Meaning what?" they asked Nikanor Ivanovich with narrowed eyes. "Meaning," he replied, "that if I were a real chairman, I would have seen immediately that he was an evil power! How ebe can you explain it? The cracked pince-nez, his being dressed in rags... What kind of a foreign interpreter looks like that!" "Who are you talking about?" they asked Nikanor Ivanovich. "Korovyov!" cried Nikanor Ivanovich. "The one who's moved into apartment No. 50 in our building! Write it down: Korovyov! You have to catch him right away! Write it down: entrance No. 6. That's where he is." "Where did you get the foreign currency?" they asked Nikanor Ivanovich in cordial tones. "Almighty God," Nikanor Ivanovich began, "sees everything and that is the path I should take. I never touched any foreign currency or had the slightest idea what it looked like! The Lord is punishing me for my sins," Nikanor Ivanovich went on heatedly, buttoning and unbuttoning his shirt, and crossing himself. "I took bribes! I did, but I took them in our own Soviet money! I took money for registering people in the apartment house, I won't deny it, it happened. Our secretary Prolezhnyov is a fine one too, that he is! Let's face it, everyone in the house management office is a crook. But I didn't take any foreign currency!" When they told Nikanor Ivanovich to stop playing games and explain how the dollars got into the ventilation shaft, he got down on his knees and rocked back and forth with his mouth open wide, as if he wanted to swallow one of the parquet panels. "Do you want me" he wailed, "to eat the floor to prove I didn't take it? But that Korovyov, he's a devil." There is a limit to everyone's patience, and a voice was raised behind the desk, hinting to the effect that it was time for Nikanor Ivanovich to start speaking in a human tongue. At this point Nikanor Ivanovich jumped to his feet, and the room with the couch resounded with his roar, There he is! There he is behind the bookcase! Look at him smirk! And his pince-nez... Grab him! Sprinkle the room with holy water!" The blood drained from Nikanor Ivanovich's face, shaking, he kept making the sign of the cross in the air, rushed over to the door and then back again, started to recite some prayer, and then finally started spouting complete gibberish. It was quite clear that Nikanor Ivanovich was unfit for any kind of conversation. They led him out and put him in a separate room, where he calmed down somewhat and merely sobbed and prayed. Naturally, they made a trip to Sadovaya Street and paid a visit to apartment No. 50. But they did not find any Korovyov there, nor had anyone in the building ever seen or heard of any such person. The apartment, which had been occupied by the deceased Berlioz and by Likhodeyev who had gone to Yalta, was empty, and the wax seals hung peacefully and undisturbed on the cabinets in the study. When they left Sadovaya Street, they took with them the disoriented and dispirited secretary of the house management committee, Prolezhnyov. In the evening Nikanor Ivanovich was taken to Stravinsky's clinic. There his behavior became so violent that they had to give him an injection prescribed by Stravinsky, and it wasn't until after midnight that Nikanor Ivanovich finally fell asleep in Room 119, occasionally emitting a deep, anguished moan. But the longer he slept, the calmer his sleep became. He stopped tossing and moaning, his breathing became easier and more even, and he was left alone. Then Nikanor Ivanovich had a dream which doubtlessly had its source in the day's experiences. The dream began with some people with golden trumpets leading Nikanor Ivanovich most solemnly over to a pair of huge polished doors. When they got there, his companions saluted him with a kind of fanfare, and then a booming bass was heard coming from on high, saying merrily, "Welcome, Nikanor Ivanovich! Hand over your foreign currency." Taken totally by surprise, Nikanor Ivanovich noticed a black loudspeaker above his head. Then he found himself inside a theater with a gilt ceiling, crystal chandeliers, and sconces on the walls. Everything was as one would expect in a small but richly appointed theater. There was a stage draped with a deep-cerise velvet curtain with depictions of enlarged ten-ruble gold pieces scattered across it like stars, a prompter's box, and even an audience. What amazed Nikanor Ivanovich was that the audience consisted of men only, and for some reason, they all had beards. No less striking was the fact that there were no chairs in the theater, and the entire audience was sitting on the slippery, magnificently polished floor. Feeling out of place in this large and unfamiliar company, Nikanor Ivanovich hesitated for awhile and then followed everyone's example and sat down Turkish-style on the parquet floor, in between a robust, red-bearded fellow and a pale hairy one. Neither of the two paid much attention to the new arrival. At this point the soft sound of a bell was heard, the lights went out in the theater, the curtains parted, and an illuminated stage came into view with an armchair and a small table topped by a golden bell. The back of the stage was draped in thick black velvet. An actor wearing a dinner jacket came out on stage. He was young, clean-shaven, very good-looking, and wore his hair parted down the middle. The audience stirred, and everyone turned their eyes to the stage. The actor walked over to the prompter's box and rubbed his hands. "Are you all seated?" he asked in a soft baritone and smiled at the audience. "Yes, yes," the audience of tenors and basses replied in unison. "Hm..." the actor began thoughtfully. "And how is it you're not bored, that's what puzzles me? Real people are outside on the streets right now, enjoying the spring sun and the warmth, and you're stuck here on the floor in a stuffy theater! Is the program really that interesting? However, to each his own," the actor concluded philosophically. Then he changed the timbre and intonation of his voice and boomed out merrily, "And so, the next act on our program is Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi, the chairman of a house committee and the head of a special-diet cafeteria. Please come up on stage, Nikanor Ivanovich!" The audience responded with friendly applause. Nikanor Ivanovich's eyes bulged with astonishment, and the emcee, shielding his eyes from the glare of the footlights, spotted him in the audience and coaxed him tenderly up on stage. And then, without knowing how, Nikanor Ivanovich found himself on the stage. The glare of the colored lights hit his eyes from in front and below, plunging the theater and audience beyond into darkness. "Well, Nikanor Ivanovich, set a good example," began the young actor sincerely, "and hand over your foreign currency." Silence ensued. Nikanor Ivanovich took a deep breath and began quietly, "I swear to God that..." But before he could finish, the whole theater broke out in disgruntled cries. Nikanor Ivanovich was disconcerted and fell silent. "If I understand you correctly," began the man in charge of the program, "you wish to swear to God that you have no foreign currency?" He shot Nikanor Ivanovich a sympathetic look. That's exactly right. I don't have any," replied Nikanor Ivanovich. "Of course," said the actor, "but forgive my indiscretion: how, then, did four hundred dollars end up in the bathroom of the apartment of which you and your wife are the sole residents?" "By magic!" said someone in the darkened hall with obvious irony. "Precisely so, by magic," Nikanor Ivanovich replied timidly, not to anyone in particular, neither the actor nor the invisible audience, and he went on to elaborate, "An evil power, the interpreter in checks, planted them there." And again the audience roared in disapproval. When quiet had been restored, the actor said, "That fairy tale puts La Fontaine to shame! Four hundred dollars were planted in your bathroom! You, audience, are all foreign-currency speculators, I ask you, as specialists, does this case make sense?" "We are not speculators," shouted various offended parties from the floor, "but it doesn't make any sense." "I agree with you completely," said the actor firmly. "And I ask you, what sorts of things are planted on people?" "Babies!" shouted someone from the floor. "Absolutely right," affirmed the emcee. "Babies, anonymous letters, proclamations, time bombs, and a lot of other things, but four hundred dollars isn't one of them because nobody's that stupid." And turning to Nikanor Ivanovich, the actor added mournfully and reproachfully, "You're a disappointment to me, Nikanor Ivanovich! I had such faith in you. So then, this particular act has not been a success." The audience began to hiss and boo at Nikanor Ivanovich. "He's the foreign-currency speculator!" the audience screamed. "It's gu...
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